GIBSON SURPRISED BY BIG LOSS AT POLLS, BUT OTHERS SAY THEY SAW IT COMING

By JOSEPH F. SULLIVAN, Special to the New York Times

Published: May 15, 1986

NEWARK, May 14—
While Mayor Kenneth A. Gibson said today he did not want to speculate about the reasons for his loss to Sharpe James, other politicians said the signs were there.

''The election was a surprise only because most professionals focused on the Mayor's money, his organization and his 16 years in office,'' said Raymond M. Durkin, state Democratic chairman and chief in Essex County, assessing the results of an election Tuesday that ended Mr. Gibson's grip on the top spot in New Jersey's largest city. ''But if you listened to the people, they were talking about change.''

At a news conference in City Hall here today, the Mayor said he was surprised and disappointed, but not hurt by the lopsided loss. He declined to discuss why the voters had decided they wanted new leadership.

Complacency Is Blamed

Assemblyman Willie B. Brown, a Democrat and resident of the South Ward, who had supported Mr. Gibson in past elections, became Mr. James's campaign coordinator this year.

''Gibson had kind of gotten out of touch with the people,'' Mr. Brown said. ''He had become inaccessible, and there was a feeling that his administration had become complacent and was accepting things the way they are - that they were giving up.''

Mr. James carried all five wards and won with more than 55 percent of the vote. The Mayor got about 40 percent of the votes, and two other candidates divided the rest.

When Charles Knox, the city's Police Director, testified on drug enforcement problems recently before a Congressional committee, he said they were so pervasive that the lawmakers should consider legalizing drugs as one way to control them.

The statement became part of Mr. James's campaign, because, Mr. Brown said, ''it showed they were accepting the problem of drugs to some degree.'' Focus on Local Concerns

He said the campaign waged by Mr. James had focused on the issues that most concerned local residents: crime, housing, schools and unemployment.

In contrast, the Mayor campaigned on bringing fiscal stability to the city, improving health services and housing, and helping businesses begin to revitalize the downtown area.

But Mr. Gibson appeared less concerned about crime and confident that what worked for him before would work again, some politicians and other Newark leaders said.

Gustav Heningburg, the former president of the Greater Newark Urban Coalition and now a consultant and host of a television program on black concerns, moderated a number of campaign debates this year.

''On one of the first debates,'' he noted, ''Ken said, 'I'm going to do exactly what I've been doing,' and I think that worked against him.''

Peter Shapiro, the Essex County Executive, had done some polling on the Newark race as part of his own effort to find out what voters were thinking this year, when he, too, will seek re-election. Campaign Polls Differed

About six weeks ago in a survey he described as a ''feeling thermometer'' - it measured how voters rated the candidates without reference to any issue - Mr. Gibson barely came out ahead, 45 percent to 41.

Mr. Durkin said his poll had the race even closer, with Mr. James leading for a time in the closing stages of the campaign.

Mr. Gibson insisted that his polls never had shown him to be in any trouble.

Mr. Shapiro said the message in the results was clear and simple: ''After 16 years, the people wanted to make a change. And that's significant, because it indicates that people have optimism and the hope that change can make a difference.''

He also agreed with Mr. Gibson that the Mayor's campaign had been well run. ''They did a bang-up job, but while Gibson had the workers and the sound trucks, James had the people,'' Mr. Shapiro said.

When Mr. Gibson, a licensed civil engineer, won election in 1970 in the wake of the 1967 race riots and the indictment of the incumbemt Mayor on Federal bribery and extortion charges, he had what many considered to be the perfect temperament for the job. Different Temperaments Cited

He was virtually unflappable. Some people today recalled that when Anthony Imperiale, a former City Councilman and the leader of a militant white citizens' organization, broke down the door to Mr. Gibson's office and stormed in, the Mayor just sat there calmly and talked to him.

''If he had a more volatile temperament in those early years, he could have easily gotten into trouble,'' Mr. Heningburg said. This same even personality helped Mr. Gibson win the chairmanship of the National Conference of Mayors in the 1970's. He was viewed as a moderate by both his fellow black mayors and white city leaders.

''By training and temperament, he is uncharismatic,'' Mr. Heningburg said, a factor that seemed to put the Mayor at a disadvantage in the campaign when he was being compared with Mr. James, a former star athlete who appeared more energetic.

Mr. Heningburg and others said that Newark was beginning to see some real improvements but that there was a feeling that the pace of change was too slow.

''Many people seem to think the city has turned the corner under Gibson, but now they want a change in leadership and want to go up the street with James,'' he said.

''When the time comes for a change, nothing can stop it,'' Mr. Durkin said.